This interview is timely in regard to my last post on submin cameras and self-made photobooks.

Interview with Ivan Vartanian

"JE: So, from the eyes of a novice in the Japanese photobook world, how should we look at a Japanese photobook? Is there something we should be looking for? What should we be thinking about while reading your book?

"IV: Well, after you’ve read through the text that I’ve written, it shows what aspects you should be paying attention to, what you should be considering while looking at a Japanese photobook. There is a lot of wishy-washy writing about Japanese photography, but there is so much to be said and so much to be understood.

"So, apart from helping the reader learn how to understand Japanese photography books, I want them to know how essential it is to Japanese photography. It’s very different from western photography, which has this idea that photographs must exist as a print. Japanese photography, in its ultimate form, is the photobook. Communicating that simple idea, to even a Japanese audience, is the main homework of this project. And you’d be amazed how revolutionary that idea is to people who are well versed in photography in the West.

"Another way of saying it is that… [points to the book proof ] … this is a facsimile, this book is a facsimile of that work. So the books included in this book are not facsimiles, these are originals. That one subtle shift in the way we look at the book is so important.

"It’s like an edition in and of itself; the book becomes an original print. No one image is more important than the other and in the photographer’s eyes, the prints themselves, which are going to make the book, are useless. They have no value other than the reproduction at the printing plant. So the photographs as a collection don’t exist beyond the book. This can be true of non-Japanese photobooks as well but it’s taken to an extreme with Japanese photobooks."

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I've recently purchased several Japanese photo books and they are quite a different experience than Western photo books. After a lifetime of looking at photography as a single print medium, the idea of photogaphy as a book medium, in the Japanese sense, is very exciting. It opens up all sorts of possibilities. I like possibilities. All sorts.

I must add that I get my Japanese photo books from Japan Exposures. Excellent site. Excellent people.